Displaced

by Andy Evans, Vesna Kovac

From coal miner to author West Yorkshire native re-discovers his roots in the former Yugoslavia Born into the coal-mining industry, Andy Evans spent his childhood dreaming of another place, one not blackened by industry, but green and pure, the land his grandfather, Maksim Culumovic, had once called home. Maksim was a ‘Displaced Person’. Originally from the former Yugoslavia, he had left his country of birth during the bitter fighting of World War II, where, in 1941, he had survived a brutal attack on his village that had left his neighbours, friends and the majority of his family ruthlessly slaughtered. The once peaceful community he had fought so hard to protect was destroyed in one single despicable act. Following the horror of that day, he had left what remained of his family, including his older brother, Ostoja, his friends and everything he had ever known and after time spent in resettlement camps in Germany and Italy, Featherstone became his new home. Like most of West Yorkshire, Wakefield, Huddersfield and Halifax had become home to ‘alien’ communities, encouraged over by a western power that had suffered heavy casualties in the war and needed a new workforce to run the heavy industry at home. For the next 40 years, Maksim worked hard and built himself a new life, far away from the one he had started with. The shadow of his past hung over him, but he remained silent on the subject. When he died in 1988 aged 79, it was his grandson, Andy, who set out to find the past, so well hidden to both family and friends that it would take a twenty-year search to uncover the truth. Displaced is a joint work between Andy, and his Bosnian cousin Vesna Kovac, granddaughter of Ostoja, bought together finally to show both sides of this emotional story. The hardships of the coalmine and a heartbroken grandchild are bought into sharp contrast with a young woman’s trials in a post-Yugoslav civil war that would once again scar the landscape of what is now Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia. Their stories combine to create an enthralling text and finally answer the question that Andy, now 45, has spent the last twenty years trying to discover. Who was Maksim?

310 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 4, 2011

About the author

Andy Evans was born in the gritty coal mining communities of West Yorkshire England.
After leaving school at the age of sixteen he followed the generations of school leavers before him to work in the local coal mines.
Following the demise of the coal mining industry he now works within the Criminal Justice System.
Andy is married with two children and has a granddaughter, Ava. He continues to live in his native West Yorkshire.

Vesna Kovac was born and raised in her native homeland of Bosnia.
Her home town is Novi Travnik. After leaving school she went onto graduate as an engineer at the Military Academy in Zagreb, Croatia and went onto work at the Bratstvo Armaments factory in Novi Travnik.
She remained in Bosnia until the end of the war and now lives in the USA with her husband and two sons.